Man Arrested For Setting Fire At Westmoreland County Gas Station
HERMINIE (KDKA)- Pennsylvania State Police arrested a man for allegedly setting a fire at a gas station in Westmoreland County.
According to police, 29-year-old Joshua Driscoll went to the Exxon station on Highland Avenue in Herminie around 8 a.m. Tuesday.
"I was on the floor gathering change from under the cigarette rack, and my other employee was standing over on the other side, and she happened to look out the window and came barreling over top of me," said John Olsen, a clerk at the gas station. "I asked her, 'What's wrong?' And she's screaming, 'There's somebody setting the pumps on fire.'"
Driscoll is accused of filling up two plastic containers with gasoline, dispensing the gas onto the ground and the fuel pump and them igniting the gas before leaving.
"It was already over, not the canopy, but the section where the pump actually sits. It was pretty high," Olsen said of the flames. "I thought I needed to press the emergency stop button, so I ran back, pressed that."
Officials say it was Olsen's quick thinking that likely prevented a massive explosion.
Police were able to identify Driscoll through surveillance video taken from the gas station.
They responded to a man walking in front of traffic along Mars Hill Road near Scott Haven Road. When officers arrived, the man matched the description of the man from the gas station and he was taken into custody.
"We ended up taking him into custody, he was walking into traffic, which was obviously another dangerous thing that he was doing," said Trooper Stephen Limani, of Pennsylvania State Police. "We were very fortunate that no one hit him. Cars were swerving around him."
Officers said Driscoll had burns to his legs, hands, right arm and his face. He was also suffering from what appeared to be self-inflicted stab wounds, authorities said.
Driscoll was arrested and will undergo a psychological evaluation.
He is charged with arson and risking a catastrophe. Police say he confessed to lighting the fire.
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